1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a liquid ejecting head, which is equipped with a piezoelectric element having a piezoelectric layer made of a piezoelectric material, and an electrode, and which discharges liquid droplets from a nozzle opening, a liquid ejecting apparatus, and a method of manufacturing a piezoelectric element.
2. Related Art
As a typical example of a liquid ejecting head, there is an ink jet type recording head in which a part of a pressure generating chamber, which communicates with a nozzle which discharges ink droplets, is configured by a vibrating plate, the vibrating plate being deformed by a piezoelectric element to pressurize ink in the pressure generating chamber and cause the nozzle to discharge the ink as ink droplets. As a piezoelectric element used in an ink jet type recording head, there is a piezoelectric element configured by a piezoelectric material offering a function of electromechanical conversion, for example, a piezoelectric layer (piezoelectric film) made from a crystallized dielectric material, interposed between two electrodes.
High piezoelectric properties are required for the piezoelectric material used as a piezoelectric layer forming this kind of piezoelectric element. As a typical example of the piezoelectric element, lead zirconate titanate (PZT) can be exemplified (see JP-A-2001-223404). However, from the point of view of environmental issues, a piezoelectric material which is lead-free or in which the lead content has been suppressed, is required, for example, BiFeO3 class piezoelectric materials which contain Bi and Fe (for example, JP-A-2007-287745).
However, the strain amount of a piezoelectric layer, made from this kind of complex oxide which is lead-free or has a suppressed lead content, is inadequate compared to lead zirconate titanate, and therefore an increase in the strain amount is desirable. Further, this problem not only exists in ink jet type recording heads, but naturally with other liquid ejecting heads which discharge droplets of liquid other than ink, and the same problem also exists in piezoelectric elements which are used in anything other than liquid ejecting heads.